“It wouldn't be the same,” Hardesty said. “If I wanted to be a wirehead, I wouldn't have joined the Marines.”
“Probably not,” Percy said. He stripped off the rest of the VR outfit, then placed it in a basket for cleaning and stepped naked into the shower compartment. Peerce and two of the others were already there, counting down the minutes until they had to get out of the water and go dress. “How do you think we did?”
“As best as we could,” Peerce said. “Boarding a starship that hasn’t surrendered is never easy.”
Percy nodded. There had been a handful of boarding actions during the war, but only one real success. The Tadpoles had probably been so surprised at a force of Royal Marines swarming onto their ship that they hadn't had time to hit the self-destruct before they were overwhelmed. Later, they’d tried boarding human ships themselves, but they'd never taken one intact. But then, no one had surrendered during the war.
It didn't help that we couldn't talk to them, he thought, as they stepped out of the shower and dressed rapidly. Even now, talking to a Tadpole is difficult. We may never understand them completely.
“You all did well,” Lieutenant Hadfield said. He looked pale, unsurprisingly. Several of the others looked as though they wanted to throw up. “We’re only an hour away from the second tramline. We might be needed.”
“Yes, sir,” Peerce said. He turned to address the men. “You lot; get yourselves something to drink - and I mean water - and then catch forty winks. Sleep in your battledress; you may need to grab weapons in a hurry.”
“The problem remains unsolved, though,” Hadfield said. “How do we board and storm a starship the size of Vesper without them hitting the self-destruct or killing most of their captives before it’s too late?”
“I don't know, sir,” Percy admitted. “Does Vesper have a self-destruct?”
“The pirates could easily have rigged one up,” Hadfield said. “A standard nuke wouldn't be that hard to produce, if they had the right tools.”
“Shit,” Percy said. If the pirates wanted to take out a few of the Marines, all they had to do was wait until the Marines had boarded the ship and then detonate the nuke. There would be no warning before it was far too late. “Who are they?”
“Unknown,” Hadfield said.
“There’s a betting pool in the mess,” Peerce put in. “The current favourite is a renegade military ship. After that, either aliens or a converted civilian ship.”
Hadfield snorted. “I trust you are not encouraging the lads to gamble?”
“They don’t need the encouragement,” Peerce said, stiffly. “I am merely monitoring the gambling to make sure it doesn't move out of acceptable levels.”
Percy nodded. Gambling wasn't precisely forbidden by regulations, but there were rules. No Bootneck could gamble his future wages, or more than a third of his shipboard account balance. He wasn't sure he approved of the idea of gambling - he’d seen people lose everything because they kept assuming the next game would bring them victory - but it was better to have it under some form of supervision than drive it underground.
“I think it would be unwise for me to place a bet,” Hadfield said. “Besides, there wouldn't be much to win if I bet on the favourite.”
Peerce smiled. “No, sir,” he said. “None of the favourites are good earners.”
He shrugged. “That said, we all need some sleep,” he added. “Who knows what will be waiting for us on the other side of the next tramline?”
“God,” Percy said.
“That’s a very low probability,” Peerce said, deadpan. “But you can put a bet on it if you like.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Jump complete, sir,” Armstrong said.
John nodded, then watched the display. This time, the star was a G2, comparable to Sol and most of the other stars that had given birth to inhabitable planets. Another red line jumped into existence, marking yet another tramline heading into the unknown. Moments later, it was joined by a second, alien-grade tramline. John studied its projected destination and calculated that it headed back towards human space. There might be a shorter way to reach their current location, in the future.
“Good,” he said. “Can you see any planets?”
“Aye, sir,” Howard said. “There’s one gas giant ... gravity scans don’t indicate any other large planetary bodies.”
“Interesting,” Richards mused. “A lone gas giant is unusual.”
“It could have several moons, like Pegasus,” John reminded him. A gas giant could supply an entire star system with enough HE3 to keep its economy going for centuries. “Helm, set course for the gas giant, but remain in stealth.”
“Aye, sir,” Armstrong said. Warspite’s drives hummed louder as she got underway. “ETA seven hours, twenty minutes.”
“Get some rest,” John ordered, briskly. It was unlikely they would encounter anything threatening in interplanetary space. “The secondary crew can handle the voyage to the gas giant.”
Armstrong looked rebellious, but he didn't try to argue. John wasn't too surprised; young officers rarely comprehended the true scale of any star system. There was no point in keeping Armstrong, or Howard, or any of the others on duty for seven hours, while they exhausted themselves. A tired crew would make mistakes. Richards summoned the secondary crew, then passed command to them. John rose, went to his cabin and climbed into bed without bothering to undress. It felt like no time at all had passed before the alarm started to bleep, informing him that they were now an hour away from the gas giant. John rubbed his eyes, then showered, changed his clothes and returned to the bridge. The gas giant was looming large on the holographic display.
“She’s nearly a third again the size of Jupiter,” Lieutenant Logan said, as she rose from the command chair. She headed the secondary bridge crew. “It’s a mystery why she hasn't collapsed into a small star.”
“Maybe she will, one day,” John said, as he took his chair. “There was that plan for turning Jupiter into a star, wasn't there?”
He smiled. There were all sorts of crazy ideas out there, ranging from constructing Dyson Spheres and Ringworlds to turning gas giants into stars and using them to warm moons like Titan and Ganymede until they could support human life. But most of them tended to flounder on the limits of human technology, at least as they were now. Even the fastest brute-force terraforming program still took over a century to produce a liveable world.
“Yes, sir,” Logan said. “But I don't know how we’d proceed.”
John shrugged as the remainder of the primary crew returned to the bridge and took their posts, then turned back to the display. Nothing had been detected, beyond a handful of moons, none larger than Phoebes or Demos, Mars’s tiny moons. None of them looked particularly habitable; indeed, John was starting to suspect that the reason there were no other planets in the system was because the gas giant had sucked in all the material that would have eventually produced other planets centuries ago. The astronomers would have fun dissecting the star system, he decided. He just hoped they showed more common sense than usual and refrained from getting too close to a particularly interesting event.
“Captain,” Forbes said, suddenly. “I’m picking up a spurt of chatter on standard radio bands.”
John leaned forward, feeling ice running down the back of his neck. “Aimed at us?”
“I don’t think so,” Forbes said. “It wasn't a focused radio or laser beam. I think it was just a burst of random chatter.”
John exchanged glances with Richards. “Can you tell us what it said?”
“Negative, sir,” Forbes said. “The chatter was encrypted. My systems cannot crack the coding in a hurry.”
Shit, John thought. “Can you localise the source?”
“Yes, sir,” Forbes said. A red icon blinked to life on the display. It seemed to be hanging in low orbit over the gas giant, rather than one of the moons. “It's coming from that location.”
John looked at Armstrong. “Mr.
Armstrong, take us on an intercept course,” he ordered. It had to be a starship, if the transmission was coming from low orbit. “Best possible speed consummate with maintaining our stealth.”
“Aye, sir,” Armstrong said.
“Prepare to launch a probe,” John added, addressing Howard. “But do not launch without my specific permission.”
“Aye, sir,” Howard said.
John thought rapidly. There was only one reason for a starship to come to a gas giant and lurk in low orbit; they had to be in desperate need of fuel. The pirates? There was nowhere else they could obtain fuel, not unless they wanted to take the risk of returning to a more settled star system, which would be defended by a national military force. It wasn't easy to mine a gas giant without a proper cloudscoop, but it could be done.
Red light washed over the display. “Contact,” Howard snapped. “Sir, they just made us!”
“Red alert, all hands to battlestations,” John ordered. He wasn’t too surprised. The faster they moved, the harder it was to stealth their drive emissions. Clearly, the pirates had an alert sensor crew. “Launch the probe, then drop stealth and punch us up to flank speed.”
“Aye, sir,” Armstrong said.
“The probe is sending back a visual now,” Howard added. It was considerably faster than any manned ship. “It has the enemy ship in its sights.”
John leaned forward as an image appeared in front of him. Hanging against the gas giant was a mid-sized frigate, a pre-war design. A long tube hung down from the starship, dipping into the gas giant’s atmosphere like a straw dipped into a glass of water. As he watched, the makeshift cloudscoop was abandoned and left to plummet into the gas giant’s atmosphere, where it would be lost forever. Judging by the leaking traces of atmosphere around it, the pirates wouldn't mourn the loss.
“That’s a Russian frigate, sir,” Howard said. “She's a modified Kirov-class or I’m a monkey’s uncle. They built them to patrol New Russia after they laid claim to the system; I don’t think they were ever deployed anywhere else.”
Richards checked his terminal. “They were all reported destroyed, as of the end of the war, sir,” he said, softly. “The Russians lied to us?”
“Maybe,” John said.
He gritted his teeth. One of the classified documents he’d had to read had been an order to consider the Russians potential enemies, at least outside the Sol System. It had puzzled him at the time - as far as he knew, the Russians were members of the Earth Defence Organisation in good standing - but perhaps the Admiralty had known something after all. And yet ... it made little sense. Why not just consider the Russians universally hostile? And why issue the order in the first place?
Did the Russians attack the missing ship? He asked himself. And, if they did, were their actions sanctioned by the Russian Government?
It didn't seem likely, he considered. Russia had lost most of her off-world investment during the war, while the settlers on New Russia had shown their opinion of their distant masters by revolting against them. The Russians would have to be out of their minds to provoke a conflict with Britain, let alone the rest of the EDO. They had to know that humanity remaining united in the face of a hostile universe was the only hope of long-term survival.
But if the pirates were renegades, they’d be more afraid of being caught by their fellow Russians than anyone else.
“Hail them,” he said. “Order them to heave to and prepare to be boarded.”
“Aye, sir,” Forbes said.
“They’re leaving orbit,” Howard reported. “I think they’re planning to make a run for it.”
“Pursuit course, Mr. Armstrong,” John ordered. The Russians wouldn't have been wrong to run, if they were facing a pre-war cruiser. Warspite, on the other hand, was faster than anything the Russians would have seen, at least anything human. “Lieutenant Forbes?”
“No response, sir,” Forbes said. “I hailed them in English and Russian.”
John shrugged. Almost everyone spoke English these days, certainly everyone living in space. It was the language of planetary datanets, two-thirds of human entertainment and work in space. Someone who didn't speak English would be lucky if they found a menial job, away from a habitable world. Their inability to talk to the patrons would be a major liability.
Unless they worked in Sin City, he thought, grimly. There, not being able to talk to the guests might be a definite advantage.
He shrugged. The Russians would definitely be able to speak English. They were just choosing not to reply.
“Repeat the hail,” he ordered. The two ships were shaking down now. A stern chase was always a long one, but Warspite was slowly overhauling her quarry. “Inform them that if they do not cut their drives and prepare to be boarded, they will be stopped by deadly force.”
There was a long pause. “Picking up a reply, sir,” Forbes said. “They’re protesting that any attempt to board their ship would be an act of war.”
John smiled. “Then demand the current Russian IFF codes,” he said. “And repeat the demand to heave to.”
“No reply, sir,” Forbes said, after a moment.
They couldn't have the current IFF codes, John thought. If they fled New Russia, the last set of codes they'd have would date from before the war. They’ve been changed a dozen times since then.
“Captain,” Howard said. “They’re locking weapons on our hull.”
“Stand by point defence,” John snapped. He couldn't help a flicker of nervousness. Warspite had never been in a real fight before - and he knew better than to underestimate his opponent, even if she was a smaller ship. “Prepare to engage!”
The Russian ship spat a salvo of missiles towards Warspite. John allowed himself a moment of relief - they were all pre-war designs, without any of the improvements that would have made them deadlier threats - and then watched grimly as they sliced into point defence range, closing in rapidly on their target. The Russians had an unfair advantage, part of his mind noted. Warspite was literally racing to impale herself on their weapons.
“Point defence ready to engage,” Howard reported.
“Fire at will,” John ordered.
Was it his imagination, he asked himself, or did the Russians twitch when Warspite opened fire with her plasma cannons? The pre-war point defence systems had been pathetic, compared to the point defence weapons humanity had copied from the Tadpoles, then rushed into mass production. Plasma cannons ran a very real risk of overheating and exploding, the Royal Navy knew from bitter experience, but they put out unbelievable amounts of fire. Five out of six missiles were destroyed before they had a chance to enter engagement range and explode. The sixth took a glancing hit, then exploded.
“Contact nuke, sir,” Howard reported.
“No major damage,” Johnston said, through the intercom. “Some of our sensors have been blinded, but they can be easily replaced.”
“Good,” John said. A laser head would have posed a far greater risk to the ship. “Mr. Howard, can you target their drives with a laser head?”
“Aye, sir,” Howard said. “But I couldn't guarantee a perfect hit ...”
“Don’t worry about it,” John said. “Fire!”
Warspite shuddered as she unleashed two missiles of her own. It rapidly became clear that the Russian ship hadn't seen any modifications, let alone a full-sized refit, since the start of the war. Their ECM and point defence systems were outdated by several years, while the Warspite’s missiles were designed to penetrate much stronger layers of point defence. The Russian ship twitched to one side, then flipped over - John was marginally impressed - before reversing and charging back towards Warspite. One missile fell to its heavy lasers, the second to a standard-issue railgun.
“Both missiles down, sir,” Howard reported. He sounded irked. “I ...”
“Engage with lasers,” John ordered. “Mr. Armstrong, keep us a safe distance from them at all times.”
“Aye, sir,” Armstrong said.
John braced
himself as the Russians barrelled towards Warspite, closing the range with terrifying speed. They might have been playing chicken, he speculated, or they might have seriously intended to ram the British ship. It would destroy both ships if they did ... he hesitated, then relaxed slightly as Armstrong altered course. Howard opened fire at the same moment, his lasers slicing into the enemy’s hull.
“They’ve bolted armour to their hull, sir,” Howard reported.
They saw the Tadpoles at work, John thought. Tadpole weapons had been designed to burn through thin-skinned human ships, wrecking havoc on their innards. They’d wiped out a whole fleet of carriers within moments, once they’d opened fire. The Russians did what they could to adapt to a universe the aliens controlled.
He wondered, suddenly, just what the Russians thought had happened, then dismissed the problem. He’d have his answers soon enough.
[Ark Royal 04] - Warspite Page 28